Lynda La Plante: Wrongful Death

For Anna, Fitzpatrick’s escape had been an unforgettable moment. She had witnessed at first hand Langton’s fury, which escalated further when she admitted that she had actually seen a photograph of the plane at a country cottage owned by the dealer’s brother and had failed to connect it to their suspect.

Although Anna had inadvertently let it slip to Walters that mistakes were made during the Fitzpatrick investigation, she never confessed her own concerning the plane, or revealed that Langton was present in the murder squad office when Fitzpatrick had posed as an FBI agent. She had always felt somewhat relieved that the Deputy Commissioner never reopened the case against Langton. She could only surmise that Walters still felt there was not enough evidence for disciplinary action.

Similarly in the Oates case, Langton had ensured that everyone on the team was ‘singing off the same hymn sheet’. When interviewed by Walters, they all stuck to the story that the sudden atrocious turn in the weather could not have been foreseen and had led directly to Oates’s opportunity to escape. Langton actually told Walters he saw it as ‘an indiscriminate act of God’ and played on the fact that the suspect was quickly rearrested and had confessed to a number of murders. Anna knew deep down that Walters was Langton’s nemesis and the real reason behind his failure to make Commander. However, Langton’s promotion was a subject she had decided to never again raise in his presence for fear he would discover she’d unwittingly betrayed him to the Deputy Commissioner. That would be something he could never forgive.

Many cherished moments had passed between Anna and Langton and they had both known their own tragedies; Langton with the sudden death of his first wife, and Anna herself when a prison inmate murdered her beloved fiancé, Ken. She had fought to salvage her career, and had even worked alongside Langton since the Fitzpatrick case, but he had never been as friendly or as close to her – in fact the reverse. He appeared to be watching her progress as she rose quickly through the ranks, as if loath to ever again become emotionally involved.

Anna had not worked with Langton since the Oates inquiry. She had no current personal relationship or could even contemplate one. Work had become her priority and her whole life, and she had managed to earn the respect of all her colleagues. However, this new case Langton had given them just didn’t sit right with her. To reopen a suicide as a cold case, because of a spurious allegation from an untrustworthy source like Delon Taylor, was highly irregular. Anna knew Langton better than anyone and was suspicious that there was a hidden agenda to his allocating an apparently simple case of suicide to a highly experienced murder team. She wondered if Langton had some personal connection. If that was the case, as the DCI she needed to know before he left the office.

‘Could have a quick word with you?’ she asked him.

‘As it happens there a couple of matters that I need to speak to you about,’ Langton said as he removed his jacket from the chair.

‘We can use my office then,’ Anna said, starting to head that way.

‘I’ve got to go to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a meeting at their FBI office. I will be back about four p.m. and we can talk then. In the meantime, you can get cracking uploading the Reynolds case onto the computers, he threw at her as he turned away.

‘Well that should take up about ten minutes of our time,’ Anna retorted, irritated.

‘That’s a nice glowing tan you’ve got, hides the red face when you’re annoyed with me.’

Langton was quickly out the door, leaving Anna even more convinced he was hiding something from her.

Deciding that she might as well make good use of her time until Langton returned, Anna picked up the file Paul Simms had prepared on Joshua Reynolds’ death. Although the contents were sparse, it seemed to her the verdict of suicide was correct. She knew that if the Coroner had any doubts he would have given an open verdict or requested a more in-depth police inquiry.

Anna spread out the scene photographs across her desk. Reynolds was lying beside the sofa on his right side with his right arm outstretched in front of him, the revolver still in his hand. His knees were in an almost foetal position and on the left temple there was a bullet exit wound. There was a very large pool of blood around Reynolds’ head and upper torso, which his white shirt had soaked up like blotting paper. Blood spatter, along with brain and skull tissue, was distributed on the seat and upright cushions of the sofa. Amongst the postmortem photographs, one showed a bullet entry wound to the right temple. The wound had many pinprick-sized black burns around it, indicating a close-range shot. The exit wound, the pathologist’s report remarked, indicated the gun being held by the victim at a slight upward angle. The forensic swabs taken from Reynolds’ right hand revealed heavy traces of firearms residue and were consistent with him pulling the trigger. The wall safe in the bedroom fitted wardrobe was open and contained four loose bullets, which were the same kind as the single empty cartridge case in the gun. Firearms residue matching that on the gun and Reynolds’ body was found in the safe, indicating it had been kept there. His blood alcohol level was high, indicating he was drunk at the time he shot himself. The pathologist’s report concluded death by injuries to the head from a gunshot wound. From the state of rigor mortis the pathologist estimated the body had been dead between eight to twenty hours prior to its discovery at midday on the sixth of November.

Anna didn’t have the enthusiasm to read through what little else there was in the case file, as the pathology and forensic reports spoke for themselves. Like the rest of the team she was finding it hard to work up any interest and she was deeply annoyed that Langton, for reasons she was unable to fathom, had lumbered her with such an open-and-shut case of suicide. There was a knock at her door and Paul Barolli entered.

‘We’ve finally got all the computers set up and linked, so if I can take a copy of the file we can get the contents uploaded.’

‘By all means take a copy for yourself and a couple for the office but hold off on the upload for now,’ Anna told him.

‘I thought DCS Langton wanted it treated as a cold case investigation and put on the computer system.’

‘I know what he said, Paul, but honestly, read the file and tell me if there’s something I’m missing. Reynolds even left a suicide note on his laptop.’

‘Why has Langton given us this case then?’

‘I haven’t a bloody clue. The sooner we interview Delon Taylor the quicker we can be freed up for a proper murder investigation. You and I will pay him a visit in Belmarsh.’

‘You want me to go with you?’

‘Well you are my number two now.’

‘You think Taylor is lying?’

‘We won’t know until we speak to him.’

Anna handed Paul the file and followed him back into the main office.

‘Right, listen up,’ she said, attempting to hide her own frustration. ‘I know you are all feeling a bit down-hearted, what with all this wonderful new technical equipment and no case to play with. DI Barolli and I will see Delon Taylor tomorrow and hopefully by the next day we will be free to take a live case. I know you all kindly came in at seven a.m. this morning to set up the office, and it’s nearly three p.m. and-’

‘Don’t tell us there’s no overtime, ma’am!’ the voice of Detective Dan Ross shouted jovially from the back of the room, resulting in a chorus of laughter from the team.

‘Ten out of ten,’ Anna said with a wry smile to the detective, a dapper dresser in his early thirties who was renowned as the office joker.